


Talkshow Host

by MooseFeels



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Eating Disorders, Language Barrier, Languages, M/M, More tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-07 06:51:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8787934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: Yuuri lives for the silence.





	1. Chapter 1

The ice--

When the ice is good, it’s silence. 

There’s the music, and there’s waiting for the  _ beat _ , for the moment and sliding through, into the right moment, the right move, the right slip or slide or leap. But being on the ice makes everything  _ silent _ the way nothing else is. 

He tried to explain it to a doctor, once, in Detroit. The college offered free counseling, and sometimes the  _ noise _ \--

Everything is noise. It’s loud, all the time. Being awake, being asleep-- there’s the noise that everything makes around him, ambiently, and then there’s just the way his head fills the world with even more noise. Doesn’t let anything go, just holds onto everything and loops it, over and over again, louder and louder and louder. 

The ice is silence, which is what brings Yuuri to the rink. 

Victor’s officially his coach now. Summer is coming, which means training in earnest for the season.

Yurri feels the weight of the season like noise, between his ears.

He steps out, carefully, onto the ice. He’s not here to do anything showy or even meaningful or officially practice. He’s just here to shake out some of the noise that’s trapped there. 

He exhales, curving around the corner of the rink, with slow and soft relief. 

Silence.

He keeps going, letting his muscles go warm and alive. He keeps going, and he starts to practice the footwork for his free routine, just to get a feel for it, to write it in himself indelibly. He keeps going, getting a feel for the parts of his program without the jumps. He counts the music in his head, clear and measured. 

“This is good work,” he hears, and he turns, and Victor’s at the edge of the rink, leaning over the barrier, smiling.

Yuuri stops, stumbling just barely. The music falls out and the silence with it, just the low sound of static coming in instead. 

“Sorry-- I--”

Victor shakes his head. “I had come to get some time on the ice, too, but I see you beat me to it. You were skating well; I hated to interrupt.”

Victor looks almost nonchalant. 

“I can-- it’s a rink,” he says. “You can skate, too.”

Victor shakes his head. Yurri skates over, near him. He leans his own body over the barrier, and he feels the tension drift out of his back and move to his forearms, the tips of his toes. 

“I had a terrible stutter,” Victor says, apropos of literally nothing. 

Yuuri turns and looks at him. 

Without his glasses on, he’s lost some of the crispness, the sharpness, that defines him. His  _ definition.  _ The edges are blurred, and in the limited light of the rink, he almost glows. Yuuri couldn’t see it, before, but he can now and--

With Victor, the noise is so different. 

Yuuri loves the noise with Victor almost as much as he loves the silence on the ice.

“I didn’t know,” Yuuri answer. 

Victor nods, again. Waits a moment. “I had to go to therapy for it, for a long time. But skating, it always felt like I said everything I needed to.”

Yuuri tries to find the right thing to say. This is special, this thing Victor told him. 

This is  _ intimate. _

He looks over at him, again, and Victor is looking at him, his blue eyes sparkling, unreadable. 

Everything with Victor, it always felt  _ intimate _ , but this feels earned and real. Not rushed or poorly timed or overly-familiar. 

“How are you doing?” Victor asks. “I know this is stressful, even this early in the season.”   
Yuuri nods, again. It’s not that  _ skating _ is stressful (but, you know, it  _ is _ ). It’s that  _ everything _ is stressful, all the time. 

“Skating this like, it’s the only part of my day that’s not...stressful,” he says.  _ Not loud _ is what he means, because stressful--

It’s not the right word the way  _ loud _ is. 

“You let yourself free, in your body,” Victor says. “It is good. But also, I see. I know.” He gestures to his own head. “Skating made me  _ free _ ,” he continues. “But off the ice? It always came back.”

Yuuri nods, again. 

“I would, to my own doctor, send you,” he says. “But, alas, he is in Russia.”

Yuuri feels himself flush. The noise turns a little louder. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, automatically. “I’m sorry-- I’m sorry.”

Victor shakes his head. “You misunderstand,” he says. His brow furrows, ever so slightly. If Yuuri did not watch his face, his expressions, so carefully every day, he is not sure he would have caught it. It’s so controlled. He reaches ever so slightly over, fingers ghosting over Yuuri’s.

“You do not have to live in fear,” he says. 

Yuuri looks at him, for a long time. 

Feels again, that something between them. That  _ intimate _ feeling, not quite silence but just as nice.

Victor smiles, one of his soft ones, and he turns from the barrier and walks away, leaving Yuuri to his rink, to the silence. 


	2. Chapter 2

It’s late, and Yuuri’s sore.

Sore isn’t quite transitory, it's just a thing he _lives_ with, at this point. It’s proof of work. Yuuri has been consistently sore since he realized he wanted to skate competitively, which means Yuuri has been sore since he was eleven. He knows how to manage it.

But since Victor’s been coaching him, he’s come out of the other side of _sore_ and _managing_ to _this hurts_ , in bed, late at night.

He sits up and glances at his clock. It’s midnight. He has to be awake at six for the run before hitting the rink at eight. But being sore is actually keeping him awake.

He sighs.

The bathroom is just down the hall, and Yuuri opens the door and looks at himself in front of the sink. He looks almost as tired as he feels.

He opens the bathroom cabinet and pulls out the tall, plastic cylinder.

Celestino introduced him to them, in the states. They’re helpful-- some kind of weird British salt that helps with muscle soreness.

He draws a bath, in the private family tub and tosses a few capfuls into the water, letting them dissolve, before stepping in, holding his knees and letting himself exhale for a long time, pull the soreness out.

The door to the bathroom opens, suddenly, and Victor walks in and Yuuri looks at him, horrified for a solid minute.

Victor nods, and says something in Russian, before stopping, and saying, “Yuuri, why are you not in the spring downstairs if soaking is what you want?”

Yuuri stumbles, for the thing to say, at his _coach_ , his _idol_ , his _friend,_ who is looking at him in the bathroom doorway while Yuuri is _naked_.

Finally, Yuuri manages, “Celestino showed me these weird salts that help with soreness.”

“Oh,” Victor says. “Epsom salts? Are you hurting?” His brow furrows.

Yuuri shrugs. “I’ll sleep better,” he says.

Victor nods. He pulls a bag out of the same bathroom cabinet, a small black one, and unzips it. He pulls out a series of pill bottles, some of them labeled prescription and some of them generic, with labels in Russian that Yuuri can’t read. A few blister sealed packs. Victor sighs heavily.

Yuuri looks over at him, nervous.

Victor says something more, in Russian.

“Can’t find, for my--” he frowns. “Sleeping pills.”

Yuuri nods.

“Does it hurt?” Yuuri asks.

Victor looks over at him, and Yuuri can see darkness under his eyes, something he realizes was there at the rink today but was harder to see. Something to how Victor wears a mask.

Victor wears a mask, Yuuri realizes.

Victor shrugs.

“Can’t sleep,” he says. “Not a problem, usually. Sometimes, though--”

He shrugs, again.

He looks through the pills and pulls out a bottle. He place it on the edge of the tub, and Yuuri reaches forward to look at it. Of course, he cannot discern what it could be.

“For the hurts,” Victor says. “My knee, when it is bad, I take these ones. Might help. Just one tablet.”

Yuuri looks at it.

“Thank you,” he says.

Victor nods.

“Are...do you have a lot of hurts?” Yuuri asks.

Victor smiles.

Yuuri realizes again that there is something intimate happening here, in the bathroom.

Victor pulls out the blister pack. “My stomach,” he says. He says something in Russian and then he gestures.

“Vomiting?” Yuuri asks.

Victor nods. “Vomiting, yes.” He holds up another bottle. “For focusing? Attention-Deficit-Disorder. Five days a week, and competitions.” Another bottle. “Depression. Every day.” Another bottle. “Hurts.” Another bottle. “ _Serious_ hurts.” Another bottle. “Emergency.” Another bottle. “Panic.”

“Where is sleeping?” Yuuri asks.

Victor sighs. He runs his hands through his hair.

“ _Bozhe moi_ ,” he murmurs. A little more Russian. “No idea. If sleeping I could find, _kotenok_ , have it I would.” He zips his bag closed, after putting all the bottles back in it. He gestures, to the bottle. “Take one. We’ll start later, tomorrow. Heal. All the training does no good on body that is all hurts.”

Yuuri nods. He opens the bottle and swallows a tablet dry.

Victor nods back, smiles again.

“I didn’t realize,” Yuuri says, because he didn’t.

“It is not publicized,” Victor answers. “Still, ah, the word, it fails me. The press would have fun at my expense, though. People think badly, of this. They should not but, they do.”

Yuuri realizes, maybe, that he could talk to Victor, about the noise.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Victor met Yuuri, it was  _ freedom. _

It was  _ freedom _ \-- he’d been at the competition all day, and instead of lighting him up, electrifying him, bring all his work, all his  _ focus _ into meaning, all it did was make him feel tired and washed up and--

The fifth medal, it  _ burned _ to wear on the podium, hurt him like it was a profane object. Not a victory lap or a battle, but resting on his laurels. A cage that he built himself and lived in, himself. 

Victor hates cages. His voice was his cage for such a long time, working in tandem with the gears in his head that would not stop or slow or cease. There are so many things of himself that bind him, or that used to, and skating was the only thing for so long that could make him loose. 

And as he does, he took the thing that turned him loose from himself and his backfiring tongue and overwhelmed brain and turned it into another binding.

So Victor makes an appearance at the banquet, as he must. It would be crass if he didn’t. Bad politics; it’d make it to the press and he’d alienate essentially the only other people on earth who might understand. Maybe.

He spends the whole time thinking about getting back to the hotel room and either staying awake all night or taking one of the things his doctor gave him for times like this. 

And of course, moments before he decides to lead, Yuuri Katsuki, who he barely even recalled  _ competing _ pulls Yuri Plisetsky (who at fifteen still hasn’t managed to dislodged that amazing stick up his ass) onto the dance floor for a dance off. Katsuki manages to dance for two minutes before he shouts the words  _ DANCE OFF!  _ At the incredible volume that only the drunk can achieve, at which point Yuri begins to dance like he  _ means _ it and Yuuri grins, wicked, the devil himself.

Of course, the night continues and--

Chris gets a pole somewhere, and Katsuki loses his clothes and Victor--

The next thing he knows someone has pushed him and Katsuki has reached for him and--

It’s  _ easy _ . It’s the easiest, most natural thing the world, the way Katsuki’s hands take his and the way his body rests into his, the way his smile spreads over his face and the warm, liquid quality of his eyes. Not seeing through but seeing into, close and near and  _ joyful _ . 

When was the last time someone say Victor with  _ joy _ ? Not lust or greed or desire or disappointment or rage or sheer competitive vindictiveness but just  _ joy _ ?

And Victor feels his heart skip a beat, and they don’t talk but Victor can’t stop smiling, can’t stop laughing, and Yuuri (because who stays on last name basis after being  _ dipped _ like that) smiles and laughs the whole time, too.

Yuuri gave Victor freedom, and it’s a shock to see how closed, how shuttered, how trapped in himself Yuuri can be. 

Victor knows that he can help Yuuri feel free. Help him be free. 

When Yuuri asks him what all his drugs do, Victor feels a stab of panic. Of course, Yuuri doesn’t ask in those precise words or in so many words, but the panic comes through to Victor, out of the haze that insomnia hoists on him every time he goes more than two days without sleeping. 

But Victor looks in his medicine bag, and he sees all the things he takes to help make him free, and if sharing that, this tender and stigmatized and  _ secret _ part of himself with Yuuri will make  _ him _ a little more free, he’ll do it. He’ll do it again and again, in interviews, on television, on the ice itself.

Victor realizes, as he tells Yuuri about his medication, that this must be what love feels like.

Yuuri pulls his knees back to his chest in the tub. Victor can see his bare shoulders and head but nothing else. This still feels so private, though. So special, so much more so than it ever does downstairs.

Victor knows he comes on strong and loud and too much. Too big, too loud, too bright. He spent so much time hiding, he can’t help but feel the need to play catch up. 

Very, very quietly, Yuuri says, “I love how quiet it is when I skate.”

Victor looks at him. He tugs over a low stool and sits beside the bathtub, resting his back on the wall. 

He doesn’t say anything, though. 

“Skating makes everything silent,” Yuuri continues after a moment. More rephrasing, than anything. 

Victor looks for the right words. “Too loud?” He asks, gesturing to himself.

Yuuri shrugs. “Yes. But not this. When I skate...it’s everything. Everything is clear again. The sound of everything, it just goes away. Skating is silence and everything else...it makes so much  _ noise _ .”

“Have you ever gone to a doctor?” Victor asks. “For maybe something for the hurts?”

Yuuri shrugs. “Where would I go? What if it doesn’t do anything?”

Victor looks over at him, Yuuri who gave him dancing and freedom. 

Yuuri who is in his own cage.

Yuuri, with dark hair pushed back from his face, wet with bathwater. Cheeks flushed with heat, warm brown eyes wavering. Vulnerable.

A night for realizing, it occurs to Victor that he is the first one Yuuri has told about this.

“We will search,” Victor says. “But it does not...these hurts, they must-- they--” He stumbles, looking for the words. He’s tired, his English is losing him and his limited Japanese is gone. “You do not have to live in fear,” he says, again. 

Yuuri nods. 

“I’m going to get out of the bath,” he says.

Victor nods, and then he realizes this is an invitation to leave. He gets up from the stool and puts the bag with his medications in it back in the cupboard.

“Sleeping,” he says, “I must find.”

“Good night, Victor,” Yuuri says from the bath. 

Victor pauses in the doorway, and turns. Looks over his shoulder just enough to see Yuuri from the corner of his eye. “Good night,  _ lyubimaya _ ,” he says.

And he goes back to his rented room to look, once again, for his sleeping pills.


	4. Chapter 4

Yuuri sleeps like the  _ dead _ and when he wakes up, he doesn’t feel the soreness quite as acutely. He, of course, wakes up later than usual, but nine isn’t a  _ catastrophe _ . He sends Yuuko a message--  _ we’re going to crosstrain today! _ \-- and stretches his shoulders. Feeling his muscles tug and go a little more loose, he sighs into the feelings, happily. 

He shuffles to the bathroom and when he comes back, he pulls on his sweats and a shirt. 

Downstairs (and upstairs) there’s no sign of Victor; Yuuri assumes he’s still asleep. 

His mother is folding linens, and he kisses her gently on the cheek. “Going for a run,” he tells her. “If Victor wakes up and looks for me. I have my phone.”

“Of course,” she says, and she smiles at him. 

Yuuri tugs on his running shoes and heads out, down the high, sloping hill and further down to the beach, where he runs on the path that snakes along the beachside. He’s listening to the radio on his phone, streaming directly from the Haesetsu station, but more than anything, that’s just for something to listen to other than the inside of his own head. 

The competition is coming. It’ll be here soon. 

Is he gonna be  _ good _ enough?

He sighs. 

There’s a long staircase, leading up to the ninja house, and he jogs up it, keeping his knees high, stretching his calves as he goes. He  _ burns _ by the time he makes it to the top, and he jogs back down. He’s down the steps and to the long, winding path again, when his phone buzzes. 

He answers it.

“Victor?” he answers.

“Yuuri!” Victor replies. “I heard from your mother you are running! Let me meet you! We should get lunch!”

“I”m at the base of the castle,” Yuuri answers. “I went for a run.”

Victor laughs. “I know,  _ kotonok _ , your mother, she told me. I will meet you, with Makkachin?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri answers. “Yeah-- there’s the place by the beach. I’ll meet you there.”

“Very good!” Victor exclaims. “I await it eagerly!”

Yuuri hangs up and catches his breath for a minute more, before jogging down to the place.

Victor is waiting there, with two large bowls of what Yuuri suspects is eel donburi. He sits at the table, opposite Victor, who hands him the bowl and a pair of chopsticks, smiling brightly. “Yuuri,  _ lyubimaya _ , how are you this morning?”

Victor seems more  _ present _ this morning than he was last night. The dark circles are a little lighter and he seems to have shifted a weight from his shoulders.

“Did you sleep?” Yuuri asks.

Victor shrugs. “Some,” he says. “But taking a day from the rink-- this is was wise! Today feels restful. I feel good.” He pulls apart his chopsticks and takes a bite. He closes his eyes and smiles, broadly. He says something in Russian, like he is searching for the word in English. Victor speaks  _ abysmal _ Japanese; he can order decently and ask where a bathroom is, but his accent is heavy enough to be indecipherable. There’s something charming to it, that Yuuri can’t quite put his finger on. He’s sure his own Russian is just wretched, but he’s enjoying hearing Victor across all three languages, trying, looking for how to tie the ideas together.

Yuuri is just generally enjoying Victor. 

“This is good,” Victor says. “Good for body. Good for soul.”

Yuuri grabs his own chopsticks and takes a few bites, still feeling a little too racing, too fast after his run. 

“So,’ Yuuri says. “What was your plan for today?”

Victor frowns. “I had none,” he says. “After last night, I was so tired and you were too, I scrapped the practice. I thought we could do it on another day, maybe a day from today? But we have time and your program, it is looking very good. Rest is important.”

Yuuri takes another small bite. The eel is rich and soft; so very good. There’s okra beside it and he takes a bite of that, as well. “Is this about...about hurts?” he asks, tentatively.

Victor shrugs. “Yes and no. Rest is good. For both of us. For everybody.”

Yuuri closes his eyes. Tries to find the words for what he means. What he thinks.

“I’m not-- I’m not  _ weak _ ,” he finally says. “I don’t have to be babied.”   
Victor raises an eyebrow. “You think I baby you?” He asks. “I disagree. I think you are a professional athlete. Your body, this is your...your body is your career. You must care for it. This means time off. And your mind is also a part of your body-- you should care for it as well. So today, we rest. Tomorrow as well. And then we return to the ice, and you will tell me if I baby you then, yes?”

Yuuri smiles back at him. Looks back down, at his lunch, which he’s more picked at than anything. 

“Okay,” he says, conceding to his coach. 

Victory takes another bite of his lunch, and he says, “This is eel?”

Yuuri nods. “River eel,” he says. 

Victor lays a hand over his stomach and sighs, happily. “I love Japan. Months, I have been here, and I have not eaten a single beet.”

Yuuri laughs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hot take: beets are bad.


	5. Chapter 5

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Victor says, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder. 

Yuri sighs on the other end of the line. “Why not?” He asks. “Everyone else does.”

Victor rolls his eyes. He shakes his shirt a couple times before hanging it out on the line to dry, the sea air and sunshine a more efficient and cheerful dryer than the lugubrious machine sitting in the Kasuki’s utility closet. 

“They don’t,” he says. “I hear them too, and they don’t.”

Yuri grumbles a little, but he doesn’t try to defend it any more. 

“How is Yakov?” Victor asks. “And Gregori and Mila?”

“Gregori is an  _ idiot _ ,” Yuri says. “His girlfriend finally left him and he’s been  _ insufferable _ since.”

Victor hums, under his breath. “Poor Gregori. Good for Anya though.”

“His whole  _ program  _ is about it,” Yuri says. “Love makes you a fool. Shoot me if I ever fall in love. Spare me the misery, Victor. You must promise.”   
“I thought we established-- these are your words here-- that my promises mean nothing,” Victor says. He shakes out his jeans and hangs them on the line. 

“When will you give up this ridiculous crusade and come back to Russia,” Yuri says. “He’s not going to medal. It’s a fool’s errand.”

Victor wonders, not for the first time, who taught Yuri to talk like this, who weighed his tongue with bitterness like ash. 

“Yuri, I wish you would not talk about my friend like this,” Victor says. “I wish you would not talk about my professional goals-- my  _ student _ like this. Particularly because I think he’s progressed admirably in the past month. And I must tell you, the competitions are much more interesting with worthy competitors.”

Victor catches the edges of Yakov’s voice in the background. 

“I’m  _ coming _ you old man!” Yuri shouts back. “Tell the pig I tell him to eat shit.”   
“I’ll send your love along, Yurio, tell Yakov I send my warmest regards.”

Yuri hangs up, and Victor does too, tucking his phone back into his pocket. He talks to Yuri on the phone every week or so, and something to it is deeply soothing. He feels like an  _ idiot _ in most of his conversations here; his English is conversational at best and a natural disaster at worst and his Japanese might as well nonexistent. It’s nice to not have to think so hard to pull a sentence together, even if it’s just for fifteen to twenty minutes every once in awhile. It’s nice to feel deft in a language again

He sings, under his breath, as he hangs the laundry. Yuuri is on a run; today is crosstraining instead of rink practice, so he’s mostly working with Minako in her studio. Victor’s doing laundry and studying tape and--

He’s  _ maybe _ \--

_ Maybe _ researching the kinds of doctors in Japan that he had in Russia.

Of course, between the language barrier and Victor’s deep seated fear that maybe he’s overstepping his boundaries, it is slow going. Of course, he’s also looking for someone who can help him find a prescription for his missing sleeping pills and soon enough his other drugs will run out and--

He sighs, heavily. He’s run out of wet laundry. He grabs the basket and steps back inside, into the inn. 

He places the laundry basket back on top of the dryer and he closes the closet and--

“Oh! Vicchan!” Yuuri’s mother exclaims.

She’s a small woman, a little more than four feet tall and Victor can’t help but see the family resemblance between her and Yuuri. The roundness in both of their bodies and faces, the shape of their eyes, the soft sort of way both of them smile. 

Victor smiles at her ducks his head briskly. “Mrs. Katsuki,” he says. “Good afternoon.” He knows his Japanese must be just  _ awful _ , but she keeps smiling. 

“Can I help you with anything?” She asks, in soft English. 

Victor looks at her, and he realizes, maybe, she could help with this.

“Actually,” he says.


	6. Chapter 6

Mrs. Katuski speaks a surprising amount of English. Different English than Victor speaks, but still there. It makes sense though; Yuuri lived away from home for five years and had coaches and competitions and victories before that. It occurs to him that they may not understand the particular sport that Yuuri competes in, but they do support it, and him, as best they can.

“What kind of doctor?” She asks, sitting down beside him, tapping on the open laptop. 

Victor looks for the English word. He knows it’s there. 

“A doctor for...my soul,” he says.

Mrs. Katsuki doesn’t frown, but she does type something into a translation page, before turning to Victor and saying, “A priest?”   
Victor laughs. “No, no, for ah, hm.” He frowns. “My--”

_ He needs a therapist _ , he thinks, in Russian. 

“For my mind,” he says, finally. “I need a doctor for my mind.”

Mrs. Katsuki thinks on this for a moment, before she says, “Is he having trouble again?”

Victor feels his expression shift, to confusion. Concern. “How do you mean?” He asks. 

Her expression melts, ever so slightly, still so warm, so open, so proud, but now it is tinged ever so slightly with worry. Everything to her, he realizes, is rich with care. Worn, with care. 

“We almost lost Yuuri,” she says. 

Victor finds himself struck with how practiced and easily the sentence comes to her and from her. 

“In America, before he worked with Coach Celestino. A different coach. He  _ pushed _ him.” She pauses pursing her lips ever so slightly. “He had problems. He had to go to the hospital. Mari and Minako went to see him. He got better.” She says a sentence in Japanese, the only words of which Victor can catch are  _ Yuuri _ and  _ eating _ and  _ doctor _ . 

Victor tries to reach for what he means, next. 

“He lives in fear,” he all he can say that begins to approach what he means. 

_ The anxiety eats at him all the time, you can see it on him at every moment, except when he’s drunk or when he’s on the ice. _

“I am his coach,” Victor says. “It is my job to care for the body and wellness of my student. This is a sickness. He needs a doctor of it.”

She nods. She types a few things into the computer and then writes down a handful of addresses for him. 

“We were scared you were hurting him,” she says. “The old coach made--” She pauses. She says something in Japanese, and then, in English, “Eating disorders.”

Victor feels his stomach drop from somewhere in his chest into his feet, a plummeting, falling sensation. Something washes over him, heavy and dark. Knocks the air out of his lungs. 

“But Yuuri is still safe,” she says. “The American problems did not come back. We watch him. We watch you.”   
Victor nods. He looks at the names, and he looks back at Yuuri’s mother, who he trusts, and who trusts him. 

Katsuki Hiroko has trusted many people with her child, and Victor will not be another to hurt him. 

“Thank you,” he says, bowing his head slightly. “For watching.”

* * *

 

“So,” Minako says, looking at him, poking her straw around in her diet coke, “have you and Victor fucked yet?”

Yuuri goes from seventh position to laying on the floor basically instantly. 

“I cannot,” he says. “I cannot believe you would do this to me.”

Minako shrugs. “Is that a yes or a no?” She says.

“He’s my  _ coach!” _ Yuuri cries. “I couldn’t-- I would--I can’t--”   
“Shame,” Minako says. “He’s very into you.”

Yuuri sits up on the floor and looks at her. “What would make you  _ think _ that?” He asks. “Victor could have  _ anyone _ ; why would he want--”   
“Could have anyone but he wants you, Yuuri,” she says. “You’d have to be thick to not see it.”

“You’re inventing this. Lying, whole cloth, to bother me. Get under my skin,” he says. “You’re making fun of me.”

Minako rises from her stool on the floor and shakes her head. “Not about this. Plenty of other things, but no this,” she says. “You should make a move. He’d love it.”

“He’s just my coach, Minako,” he groans. “He just watches me because--”

“Because he’s into you,” she interrupts. “Yuuri, I know. I know this is hard for you, because your brain  _ lies _ to you, but people like you. People enjoy you. Lots of people. Including Victor Nikiforov.” She takes another sip of her coke. “ _ Use _ that. One of your programs is about lust--”

“It’s about  _ eros _ !” He exclaims. 

“One of your programs is about  _ lust _ ,” Minako continues, plunging on, unstopped and unstoppable. “Stop using it abstractly. Make Victor lust for you. Make it a concrete thing.”

“Oh my god,” Yuuri murmurs, burying his face in his hands. “I’m done here. I’m going for a run. Tomorrow I’m on the ice, so if you need me--”

“More like if you need me,” she says, smiling, all confidence and swagger and sass. 

“You have my number,” Yuuri finishes, his voice going tighter than it should. 

Minako nods. She rolls her neck and Yuuri changes from his studio shoes into his running shoes and heads out, jogging up the hill in town to the stretch that leads toward the spring.

The noise turns on, during the run. 

What if Victor thinks--

What if Victor thinks Yuuri wants to--

And it’s not that he  _ doesn’t _ but--

What if Victor thinks Yuuri is less serious? That he doesn’t want this or that he doesn’t  _ need _ this or that he only wants it because--

What if Victor thinks Yuuri is some kind of _ whore _ .

The thoughts are going on loop, and the time passes, and he’s back at the spring before he knows it. 

He’s catching his breath when Victor steps outside with a water bottle and an easy smile. “Yuuri!” He says. “Wonderful news! We are going to go find my sleeping pills!”


	7. Chapter 7

Victor tugs him away from the inn and toward the train station before he can manage to change his clothes or take a shower or anything. He’s still sweaty from training all day, and he  _ knows _ he smells just awful, but Victor doesn’t say anything but the sharp insistence that Yuuri come with him and pulls him onto the train. 

Yuuri can feel everyone looking at them, and he can feel everyone judging him for being sweaty and wearing his exercise clothes and for how he smells. And he can feel the twinge in his shoulder and the ache in his feet and through his thighs. There’s a low kind of ache in his knee that’s always there but is a little sharper than usual. Yuuri feels everything, the weight of it all, and so he rocks forward and rests his head on his fists and just breathes.

Everyone’s watching him and  _ Victor _ probably thinks he’s just here because he’s after him for some kind of--

God, Victor probably--

Yuuri can’t quite bring himself to think about what Victor probably thinks. 

“Are you hungry, Yuuri?” Victor asks, after about ten minutes. “Your mother, she packed you a lunch. I already ate, but if you have been training, all through the day, you should eat.”

Yuuri sits up and shakes his head. He repeats the gesture Viktor made for vomiting the other night. “Nauseous,” he says, in Japanese. “Dizzy,” he says, in English. 

Viktor nods, as if understanding. “Of course,” he says. “Can I help?”

Yuuri shakes his head, and leans back forward, to rest on his knees. A few moments later, he feels Victor’s hand stroking up his spine in long, gentle strokes. 

Yuuri wants to lean into it, but the sensation makes the noise louder. 

“Please don’t touch me,” he says, maybe a little too softly to be heard, but Victor stops. 

Yuuri sits up. “Training. Sore,” he says. 

“I have, for hurts?” He asks. He pulls out a small bottle that Yuuri recognizes is ibuprofen. 

Yuuri nods, weakly, a Victor shakes out three small red pills and hands them to him. Yuuri swallows them dry. He sits up and closes his eyes, lets the feeling of the train dragging him through space consume him. He tries to let the sound of the train fill him instead of the noise. 

Yuuri tries to talk against the noise; that Victor has only wanted to help him; Victor has only been kind to him; Victor has not been forward or at least, he’s listened when Yuuri has said no. Yuuri tries to talk against the noise; the noise doesn’t listen. It never does, in its fashion. 

Victor just wants to help.

The train deposits them in the city after about an hour, and they step off into the station. Victor studies a set of directions his mother wrote for him in her wavering, distinct English handwriting.

“It should be up this street? Do you have the word for this? I cannot remember, in English,” Victor says, exiting the station and looking for a particular street. 

Yuuri looks at the word Victor is pointing to and he nods. “Therapist,” he says. “Psychologist, actually.”

Victor closes his eyes, looks briefly ecstatic. “Thank you,” he says. “This has been driving me crazy.”

Yuuri smiles, and lets Victor drag him through the city to a small office building. 

They walk inside and Victor looks at the plaques and he bites the inside of his lip. 

He murmurs something in Russian, before he turns to Yuuri and says, “I don’t think I thought this.”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. 

“What if they do not speak English?” Victor asks. “Almost certainly they do not speak Russian.” 

Yuuri looks at him, and he feels something--

Fond.

“I’ll help,” Yuuri says.  “So that you can have sleeping.”

Victor smiles at him, his expression shifting to something warm and open. 

He’s says something Yuuri can’t understand, in Russian, before looking back at the paper and saying, “The elevator? Can you help me, Yuuri?”

Yuuri nods, and they approach the bank of elevators.


	8. Chapter 8

Viktor sits down in the pharmacy a little unsteadily, looking  _ terribly _ nervous. 

Yuuri’s never really seen him look like this before-- even in the bathroom, when showing him the medications, Yuuri’s never seen Viktor look scared like this before. It’s a little humbling. 

Yuuri holds his hand, though, while the pharmacist fills his prescriptions. 

Viktor, with his mask  _ off _ , all the way. 

“You were very brave,” Yuuri says, after a long moment, and Viktor turns to look at him, his face open, features stricken. 

But he smiles, after a moment, and he pushes his own tears back with his hands, that shake a little.

He says something in Russian, something Yuuri doesn’t know, before he shakes his head and says, “Sorry. I get...nervous.” He laughs, his nose stuffy, just barely. “Mila liked to tease me for it,” he says. 

Yuuri squeezes his hand. 

Viktor squeezes back.

“Ah!” He exclaims, after a beat. “That was not so bad though! And soon, sleeping they will give me! I am glad I went. Thank you, Yuuri.”

Yuuri smiles at him, again.    
They wait for the pharmacist to call his name, and they gather the bag and they shuffle back to Hasetsu. 

They sit beside each other on the train, and Yuuri’s nausea has eased enough that he manages to eat about half the lunch his mother sent with them. The noises eases enough that Yuuri can hear himself think, and they climb off the train and walk, sedately, back to the Inn in the rapidly depleting sunlight.

“I didn’t like group therapy,” Yuuri says, in the comfortable silence, about half a mile from home. 

Viktor looks over at him, eyebrows raising.

“Yuuri, I--”

“It’s okay,” Yuuri says. “Mom told me she told you. In a text message.”

Viktor looks away, almost ashamed. 

“It’s not a secret,” Yuuri says. “Not really. It’s just that no one really  _ asked _ . Phichit and Leo and Guang-Hong all knew so--” He sighs, after a moment. “No one really asked and...and anyway, I never really wanted to tell.”

Viktor pauses, as if struggling for the right thing to say. He usually seems so  _ ready,  _ with the words just there in his throat already, raring to go. Finally, though, he says, “I never had group therapy.”

“They made me go, in the hospital. I was the only professional athlete and the only non-American,” he says, laughing. “None of them understood and the only thing we had in common was that we’d all--” He laughs, again. “We’d all tried to commit suicide.” He can’t explain why, but something about it is  _ very _ funny. “And no one in the other group-- the one for people who had stopped eating-- was an athlete or Japanese, either. So I just had to sit there and  _ listen _ and I couldn’t make any of them understand it. It was  _ very _ frustrating.”

He pauses, before he says, “I never liked group therapy and the doctor I worked with alone didn’t understand, really, either.”

Viktor looks pale, a little unsteady. 

Yuuri realizes that maybe he made a mistake. 

Maybe here, pity will come and the tenuous, baby-bird fragile thing he has with Viktor, their  _ understanding _ , will break. 

“I did not...I did not think through that you were in America,” Viktor says, after a long moment. “For so long, and in the hospital.” He clears his throat, and they walk on, through the wind. “Alone? Lonely.”

Yuuri looks away, barely, because it’s hard to explain that he was  _ always _ lonely. That this is maybe the least lonely he’s ever been in his life.

“I was alone here, too,” he says. 

Viktor nods. 

“There was always skating,” he says, his voice almost wistful. “Never time for play or school, but there was always skating.”

Yuuri finds himself smiling. 

“Always time for skating,” he says. “Never time for eating or sleeping, but always time for skating.”

Viktor, who understands him, smiles the same smile back.


	9. Chapter 9

It hurts to watch him fall, is the thing. 

It does more than make him gasp, it makes him shudder. It sends something ugly and harsh down his spine and through his lungs. He can feel it in his own knees, in his own hips, his own back and lungs. He can feel the ice, cut and abrasive, biting against his own skin. 

It does more than shock him, it scares him. 

Viktor doesn’t skate much, not here, not in Hasetsu. He turns figures on the ice and he goes through steps, but it’s mostly when Yuuri is in the shower or training elsewhere. Yuuri knows he puts in time; he can see it in his feet, in how his callouses don’t soften, in the bandages that go missing. 

Viktor doesn’t skate much, and rarely kates when Yuuri is watching. Really, when anyone is watching. 

Yuuri still stands in the hall that leads from the lockers to the rink, though, and watches. As hidden as he can be, as silent as possible. 

It  _ hurts _ to watch him fall. It hurts almost as much as falling actually does. 

Viktor gets back up from the ice, though, and he brushes himself off, and he skates a few more fast, rushing passes across the ice and he  _ throws _ himself into the air. Yuuri knows. He sees how his knees and ankles and hips all leap, how his muscles  _ push _ , how his very body fights against gravity with all the force it can muster. 

It feels like slow motion. Yuuri knows that because he does this enough himself. It feels like an instant. Yuuri knows because one moment Viktor is hung in the air like a snowflake, and the next he his the ice  _ hard _ .

“ _ Ебаное дно _ ,” Viktor hisses, just loud enough that Yuuri can catch the syllables of it. Yuuri’s not sure what it means, but he also knows precisely what it means. 

Yuuri tries to slip away, back into the locker room, when he hears Viktor say, “I know you are here, Yuuri.”

Yuuri pauses in the hall, before he turns back around and walks to the bench, near the gate. He goes like he can’t help himself. Drawn, hypnotically. 

There’s something about how Viktor shakes as he pulls himself away from the rink and sits on the bench.  It’s not quite right to say it scares him; he’s not sure what this feeling is, most exactly. This unsettled, frightened sensation that squirms in his chest, strangling him. Anxiety but different. Concern but so much more intense. 

Viktor shakes a little, just a small tremor across his shoulders and into his arms. His hands are clenched tight. Hard fists. 

Viktor’s hair in his eyes, flushed and sweating, Yuuri marvels for a moment how different he looks. How almost entirely unlike himself Viktor appears to be for just a moment. 

“Viktor,” Yuuri starts.

“I’m fine,” Viktor answers. 

Yuuri knows, though, that this isn’t fine. This is Viktor falling, hard, on the ice too many times in one day. 

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri blurts. “I didn’t mean to-- I’m-- I know this must be private.” He swallows, feeling the dry machination of his throat. “I’m sorry.”

Yuuri sees, from the corner of his eye, how Viktor’s lips are pressed together. A thin, flat line. Viktor’s hands clenched in his gloves. 

Yuuri wonders, if they weren’t clenched, if they would shake like this. 

Yuuri has seen all of Viktor’s programs that have been published. Every junior program and gala skate; every training rink recording, every competition, every Olympic skate-- all of them. Yuuri’s seen him miss jumps. He’s seen him fall before. 

This is different. 

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri repeats. 

It’s vicious, the peculiar way Yuuri’s panic spikes when Viktor doesn’t immediately say anything. SIlence hangs between them for an agonizing minute-- just long enough for Yuuri’s imagination to populate an endless stream of scenarios in which Viktor leaves and never comes back, never talks to him again, never again exists as such an intimate part of Yuuri’s life. 

“I get-- I want to get it  _ right _ ,” Viktor murmurs. His voice is low. “I have to get it right.”

Yuuri nods, understanding. 

“I should know,” he says. “I  _ should _ . Yakov, he would until red in his face, yell at me.” Viktor draws up straight, and Yuuri see his face pull into a stern, sharp frown. “ _ Vitya! _ ” He says, his voice low and growling, “ _ If you are injured, you will not land the jumps still! _ ” 

Viktor’s impromptu imitation of his coach startles a laugh out of Yuuri.

Viktor turns, eyebrow raised. “I drove the man bald, Yuuri,” Viktor says. “Some tears for my old teacher, please.”

Yuuri laughs again, the sudden shift overwhelming him. 

It’s a little easier again, suddenly. Viktor’s hands look relaxed. His posture, while still straight and tall, isn’t tensed. 

“I don’t want to let anyone down, either,” Yuuri says. 

Viktor takes a deep breath. Hangs his head down, his chin to his chest. 

“Is there a word for this?” Viktor says. “How good you are at knowing me? I thought my English excellent, but I am always missing the words when I am with you.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, startled. “Uhh. I-- I don’t know. I could ask someone or-- I’m sorry.” 

Viktor huffs a short, breathy kind of laugh. 

“Do not be sorry, Yuuri,” he says. “Never apologize, not to me.”

Yuuri nods a little. 

“I should shower,” he says. 

“Of course,” VIktor answers. 

Yuuri turns, to look at Viktor from more than the side of his vision, to see him looking back at him, face to face. 

Yuuri hadn’t seen before how Viktor’s blue eyes had gone just a little watery, at how his smile stretched a little crookedly, vulnerable across his face. He hadn’t seen the moment that Viktor became himself again; beautiful and strange. 

Yuuri swallows again.

He nods, and gets up from the bench, and takes his coward heart to the showers, unsure what happened, unsure what’s happening, unsure where they’re going. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shows up a year later with less than a thousand words and spelling viktor's name differently*  
> i'm on twitter now! @moosefeels

**Author's Note:**

> anyway lol someone give my anxious son a xanax


End file.
